Google Remarketing Gives Converting a Second Chance

Remarketing is an innovative feature that combines the power of AdSense, with a dash of Big Brother, to help sites draw back would-be customers who’ve already moved on.

Here’s how it works.

Remarketing Basics

Remarketing uses a small bit of embedded code to generate Remarketing Lists. These lists log information from customers who look at the tagged pages and saves it for later use. The code can grab user info from specific pages or your whole domain.

Later on, when that person is looking at a similar site, AdSense will serve up your ads with the hope that the customer will return.

For example: An online bookstore could set up a remarketing tag to create a list of visitors who looked at poker strategy books, but didn’t follow through with the purchase.

If those same customers go to another site to look at poker books, they’ll be shown one of your ads. Ads targeting customers on the remarketing list can include a new call to action (CTA) based on their previous site visits.

Customization

Not surprisingly, the Remarketing feature is highly customizable. Users can build lists based on very specific parameters and even create multiple lists at the same time, or even for specific periods of time.

Some of the examples Google gives of customized lists include:

Users who have already been converted.

Up-selling to existing customers.

Custom combination lists.

Call to Action

Like any Adsense campaign, remarketing ads have to have a compelling call to action. Are you offering a discount to returning visitors? A special bonus? Free rolls? Simply telling them that you’re there and you’d like them to come back won’t be enough.

Finally

Google has a ton of information and FAQs about remarketing on the Adwords site, including strategy tips and tricks. There’s also a good tutorial on the subject from Wordstream that can be found here.

Users should also note that remarketing campaigns won’t kick in until your site has logged in 100 individual users over the course of 30 days or less.

Do you have any experiences with Google Remarketing? Let us know about them in the comments section below.

Hi Seb – Good points and thanks for bringing them up. You’re right that we should have clarified Google’s (lame) policies towards gambling. Sometimes we’ll run a story like this for the benefit of our readers who also run Forex, Amazon affiliates, etc.. We’ll mention that next time.